Considering the high save percentages of Bower, Plante and Palmateer from the mid-60s to late-70s, I would've assumed that if there was a shot-counting bias at MLG, that it would be one that was more liberal in counting shots than other arenas. The home/road splits posted so far are the opposite of what I expected.
Same here.
The idea that a team could be giving up high shot totals, but few quality chances, is valid. (The Islanders dynasty is another example of a renowned defensive team giving up more shots than you'd expect). I guess it's a good reason why save percentages alone don't tell the whole story.
It has to be shot quality, right? If it’s not, what is it?
I think it's clear that rightly or wrongly by 1936 - 10 years after Vezina's death - "conventional wisdom" considered him the best goalie of the era - better than Clint Benedict, Hugh Lehman, or Hap Holmes.
Later, in 1953:
Montreal Gazette, Mar 9, 1953
There are some who would picked Benedict, however
Ottawa Cititzen, March 10, 1943
In 1948, Kenny McKenize, hockey journalist and co-founder of The Hockey News called Benedict the greatest goaltender of all-time. He recalled a save Benedict made on Duke Keats that made Keats "so mad that he couldn't speak for 2 hours after the game."
Vancouver Sun, Oct 13, 1948
This is the part that worries me. We know that today’s journalists and analysts aren’t the experts they often project themselves as, and I’d like to think their counterparts from the past knew a little better, but how much better?
As soon as a trophy exists that recognizes the league’s best goalie, the goalie with their name attached to that trophy is going to get overrated. I am sure that he is overrated to some degree by those who spoke of him 10-30 years later, but figuring out how much is the hard part.
Vezina seems like he was probably the best goalie in the NHA, but to what degree? Also, we're talking about a split league situation there. When he got to the NHL, there seems to be a Bendict/Vezina split in terms of dominance.
Also, not sure if you noticed or not, but once they were both in the NHL together, it was still a split league too.
You are bringing up an outlier and acting like he provides definition
You have it set in your head that rule changes are defining benchmarks that change everything.
And you should let reality determine how you vote, not preconceptions.
Just thought these three points were worth quoting.
I absolutely agree with you that C1958 is punishing them based on their dates of birth.
Consider George Hainsworth, pre forward pass and post forward pass performance:
http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/h/hainsge01.html
Pre forward pass era, in three seasons, Hainsworth,twice led the NHL in GAA/three Vezinas and twice lead in shutouts - more than half of his career record of 95.
Post forward pass, even though Hainsworth played for two SC champions in 1930 and 1931, basically the same Canadiens team from the pre forward pass era, Hainsworth did not dominate statistically, nor did he recapture his dominance later with Toronto. Never lead in GAA or shutouts and never was voted to an AST.
So after the rule changes Hainsworth did not dominate like he did before. He adapted but at a much lower level solid vs previously dominant. The goalie hierarchy reflects this.
Hainsworth adapted to the rule changes associated with the post forward pass era but never performed at his previous level. he went from dominant to solid. This adaptation element was within his control but others simply surpassed him - adapted better. Other goalies won Vezinas, led in shutouts, earned AST honours including John Ross Roach and Lorne Chabot, bottom half contemporaries of Hainsworth in the pre forward pass era. Rather sharp drop from a dominant position. This impacted the long term hierarchy as well.
What’s your point? George Hainsworth wasn’t a ‘great’ player like the ones we’re talking about now.
Charlie Gardiner and Bill Durnan
Both played 7 seasons in the NHL
Durnan = 6 1st Team All Stars, but 2 of them were over competition that was probably worse than AHL quality and a 3rd was over competition that was still recoving from the war
Gardiner = 3 1st Teams, 1 2nd Team, plus a 4th likely 1st Team in 1929-30.
I don't see any advantage for Durnan in the regular season.
Advantages for Gardiner:
1) He generally exceeded expections in the playoffs. Durnan did not.
2) Gardiner's career was cut short by his sudden death due to illenss. Durnan's career was cut short after he pulled himself in the middle of the playoffs and retired because he couldn't mentally handle playing in the NHL anymore. Look at the difference in their stories as reported by Joe Pelletier:
Gardiner
Durnan:
Conclusion: These two great short-career goalies are close, but Charlie Gardiner should be ranked a little bit higher.
I agree, Gardiner should come out ahead of Durnan.
Personally, I'm not really sold that Parent was better than Esposito. In fact, I can't figure a way to make that so.
It’s hard, isn’t it?
I'm completely and totally unsold on Broda being above the Grant Fuhr/Billy Smith level. Anyone willing to convince me otherwise?
Not I, but I will say again that if you value regular season dominance
that much over the playoffs, then you should seriously consider Tony Esposito for your 1st or 2nd spot.
I'm not entirely sold that Parent was better than Espo either. But I am fairly certain that Belfour was better than Espo.
That is fair to say. Look at the voting record:
look at his all-star voting in a Roy and Hasek-less world, and it's almost identical to Espo: 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6. Then you add in the fact that it was a deeper and more competitive era (20 years later) and the fact that he was much better in the playoffs, he should be a spot ahead.
At least I
think all of that transcends the huge sv% gap (Esposito averaged 20.9 points above the league average across his best 10 seasons; Belfour just 12.6)
Charlie Gardiner during his first two seasons was part of the bottom two teams then benefited from playing against two weak teams for two seasons.
Was Gardiner the only goalie in the league benefitting from playing against two weak teams?
I’m surprised no one asked you this yet…
Yeah, I guess I can see the similarities in that Durnan played just as long as Dryden and (like Dryden) just flat out quit while he could still play. But I think the way Durnan quit (in the middle of a playoff series with his team down) is particularly onerous, especially considering that Durnan's playoff resume as a whole, while it's far from terrible, probably isn't as good as it could be.
Bingo.
I just see Belfour and Esposito as very close in the regular season with a pretty large playoff edge for Belfour. I don't think anyone has talked about either that much because I think it's a round too early to consider either.
Heh, it’s a round too early for Durnan to get in, but he’s the most talked-about goalie this round!
Now, I'm not going to lobby for a mercurial raising of Fuhr here, but I think his regular season performance goes extremely under-rated. The period for which he gets the least credit has to be the high-flying Gretzky days. I only have SV% numbers from '83/84 onward to work with (hockeyreference), but if you look at the aggregate SV% between '83/84 and '87/88, Fuhr only lags behind the "best" starter you can find on
the list by about 0.010 tied with Beezer and Smith).
.
If you remove goalies with under 150 games – leaving only “starters†– Fuhr’s .884 is not that far above average, and this is his most flattering five season period.
http://www.hockey-reference.com/pla...l=&c4stat=&c4comp=gt&c4val=&order_by=save_pct
Let's see your case for Benedict/Vezina or Vezina/Benedict as #1 and #2 in this round. Support the assertion in your post #13 of this thread that BOTH were incorrectly listed on the master list - not my creation and that both deserve at least a four to six spot bump going against the already established voting patterns.
.
Using the master list as evidence is a horrible argument.
I'm also in favor of Belfour over Esposito, and I think it's definitely too early for both this round. Some things to consider...
Competition
Belfour had to regularly compete with 2-3 of prime Roy, Hasek, Brodeur, and Barrasso for awards.
Esposito had 1-2 elite goaltenders not playing in the NHL (Tretiak and Holecek) and others playing in the WHA (i.e. Cheevers) to boost his awards finishes and to decrease league average SV%.
I’m with you on Belfour over Espo, but first of all, Gerry Cheevers was not in any way a threat to Espo’s dominance. Secondly, if you assume that all the best goalies are in the NHL, you must also assume that all the best forwards are there too. Pretty sure that Petrov, Kharlamov, Maltsev, Martinec, Mikhailov, Novy, Lacroix, Walton, Hull, Howe, Hedberg, Nilsson, Nedomansky, etc would have the effect of decreasing league average sv% to approximately the same degree that Cheevers, Holecek and Tretiak would. So the bolded is rendered moot.
Playoffs
Belfour pretty clearly has the better resume here. A Conn Smythe level performance in '99. In 2 years he would face Roy twice and Hasek and Brodeur once in the playoffs and only lost one of those series...nitpicking can be done about the strength of the team in the case of Hasek, but he proved he could go up against the best and win. Did Esposito ever do something like this? Not that I can recall. In Esposito's defense, he does appear to be a little more consistent in the playoffs...he beat who he was suppose to beat, but doesn't look like he ever really stole anything or was the difference in a close matchup, which is a pretty big issue for me.
Belfour has the better resume, yes, but Espo’s best playoff – 1971– is the second best playoff either of them posted statistically:
1995: 23.3 sv% points above league average
1999: 12.2 sv% points above
2000: 12.6 sv% points above
Espo, 1971: 21.9 sv% points above league average
Canadiens1958 said:
Your own words trip you up. Consistency was one of Belfour's problems - Mike Keenan and him had a running battle with Keenan regularly yanking him early when he started a game weakly.
I wasn’t commenting on Belfour’s consistency.
Tony Esposito was similar. Look at his 1969-70 season. 15 shutouts is impressive but factor out the shutouts and his GAA is close to 3.00, 136 goals against in 48 games.Yet Belfour ouver Esposito is not a hard case to make.
OK, now all you have to do is remove the 15 best games for the other top goalies that season and see what their GAAs would look like, and if Esposito is significantly worse than the 2nd place he actually finished in GAA, then you
might have the
start of a case that he was inconsistent.
Also Esposito's inconsistency in the playoffs is well documented. See the HSP for all the details you would like - 1971 Finals, 1973 Finals.
Single plays don’t define a player. This goes back to what Nalyd said: “You are bringing up an outlier and acting like he provides definitionâ€. Esposito’s sv% indicates he was possibly the best player in the 1971 playoffs until one single play that has dogged and defined him forever.
I’m not saying that play should be meaningless but everyone – especially you – should be careful just how much weight it really carries in defining the career of a goalie who played almost 1000 combined games.
